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M2Z's Free, Wireless Broadband Killed In Advance
mspohr writes with a sad excerpt from Fast Company: "Despite a seemingly stout business plan, and all the financial, social, and educational benefits it would bring, the FCC's just turned down M2Z's application for a coast-to-coast free wireless broadband system. ... The FCC is known to have heard complaints about M2Z's plan from existing wireless carriers. Though M2Z's network would've operated at under 1 Mbps peak speeds — meaning it was very slow by today's standards, and probably snail-like by tomorrow's — its free pricing may well have tempted many folks away from spending cash with an established ISP. Those carriers are now reported to be pleased with the FCC's decision, though they argue it's in line with the greater National Broadband Plan. Whenever that actually gets off the ground."
Citizens: What a great idea! Slow, but available. If I can't and/or don't want to pay a lot for faster Internet, we have an option!
FCC: Sorry, but this isn't in the best interests of the corporations.
... the application was turned down by the FCC for undisclosed reasons, but following the application of many complaints by the competitors. mmmm.
This sounds about as bad as something our good friends at the CRTC would do.
The argument that it went against the bold national broadband plan is really unsettling. Maybe we should somehow remind them that it's not because broadband should be available to everyone that everyone wants to (or can) pay its price.
You don't need that much bandwidth to read email, or browse non *tube sites. The article doesn't say if it was open AP free or free with registration (which would have greatly reduced the OMG porn factor), but I'm guessing free with registration, because OMG terrorists.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
...it is going to include things you won't like, This is just a taste of things to come.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Sounds like someone needs a wambulance!
" The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday said it has rejected M2Z's request that the agency demand that the winner of an auction for the radio spectrum provide free Internet service to anyone who connects to it.
The FCC didn't explain its rejection, but established wireless carriers have complained that use of the spectrum could interfere with their own services in adjacent bands. "
So 1) someone was asking the FCC to force another company (who just bid on a spectrum) to use it for free internet?
and
2) There were/are apparently some bandwidth issues with the proposal.
I think the FCC 'didn't explain its rejection" was because they were laughing to hard to hit the keys on the keyboard.
Simple as that. When this system will make a large-enough-to-afford-lobbying company rich, then it'll pass.
Apparently the 'greater than' symbol in the title was sanitised.
Corporations [Greater than] People, is what the title was supposed to be.
If we had 1mb free wireless internet all across the country, the impact would be huge to mobile phone providers. Lots of people would just switch to using wifi and google voice/skype or similar to make calls. 1mb is more than enough to handle a non-video call.
Think about this. This company is being criticized for trying to offer a product that is a generation *behind* the current technology. Just think if you wanted to buy a microwave, but you were forced to pay double what you wanted to because some government regulation mandated you adhere to a minimum power rating, safety features like locking doors, etc. etc. etc. It would be considered intrusive and there are a ton of people who would just say "Fsck it, I don't really need soggy pizza rolls anyways". That's what we have right now with the FCC. There are millions of Americans who have no internet because it's too expensive, and they have no need for the bandwidth. OK established corporations, game time, what can *you* offer us?
Federal Corporative Custodian?
No, really, what possible valid explanation can they roll out? Maybe they fear that all these hotspots would shred America apart?
Absence of proof != proof of absence.
The article mentions that one of the early complains against the proposed free network operation was that it can be used to watched porn.
Well of course it can be used for that. It can also be used to plan terrorist attacks. Or even more nefarious things: people may us it to discuss whether to plant yellow or pink flowers in their garden.
Interesting how this "but it can be used to watch porn!" argument pops up any time someone proposes a free or cheap new way to connect to the Internet.
It makes one wonder why this is never used seriously against established operators. Why this is never used against proposals to providing cheap Internet to poor families (supplied by established ISPs of course). It couldn't be something political, or could it?
Welcome to the Soviet States of America!
Killing competition before it even starts, what kind of capitalism is that? Not to mention that in a supposedly democratic country one should be able to choose as well?
An analogy: the free news and magazines. They are available everywhere, yet still they haven't killed the big name news nor magazines.
Only ones that the FCC decision serves are the big-a$$ companies. Everybody else is loosing.
On the contrary; if I am to take you at your word, it sounds like that is exactly what they need!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
This happened in history already almost 100 years ago. Wireless... free... the only difference, it was electrical power instead of internet. They tore down the Wardenclyffe tower because they couldn't meter the power usage. Meaning free wireless Power/Internet/ doesn't work... how did Radio get past that?? Oh ads...right. The thing is even if this went through would it really stop people from paying for fast speed? Not necessarily.. The people who would use this free internet wouldn't be people who already have an ISP at home, but they'd use this on the go, or really really really cheap welfare people who just cant afford internet and never would/could pay for an ISP anyway! So who's losing out here? The people. Thank you and good night.
Use > to write >.
I think the FCC is just looking out for everyones best interest here. They obviously figured out that they couldn't believe M2Z's claim to offer it to everyone, when they clearly intend to exclude everyone in the A to L range!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
If they were only rolling out a 1 milibit per second connection, I doubt it would be good for much of anything. That's 56 million times slower than an old 56k modem. A 1 Mbs (megabit per second) would be better, but still slow, and a 1 MBs would be an even better. If the plan really was for a 1 mbs connection we lost nothing by having the FCC shut it down. Or maybe someone just needs to pay more attention to their prefixes.
Posting anonymously of course, I call (to someone who would know what they'd be doing) for an open, freely accessible network. If we can create pirate bay, we can create The Network. No more company restrictions. We create the hardware, we set up safe, intelligent systems that will self-repair for the next 10 000 years. Perhaps low-power, low-speed, but omnipresent, capable of free information sharing. A Network that will inevitably spread throughout the world as nodes upon nodes can spring up based on the simple build instructions. Organic, forever breathing, constantly evolving, improving, replicating, communicating. Free. Global. Network. Now.
Original Article that TFA links to: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9HVCJF00&show_article=1 "[the FCC] has rejected M2Z's request that the agency demand that the winner of an auction for the radio spectrum provide free Internet service to anyone who connects to it. " It didn't have anything to do with M2Z....but I can see why they shot down the "requirement that it be free"
neorush
with the power to bring net neutrality, in spite of ISPs' best interests?
This wasn't some entitlement program, but a company wanting to offer internet access paid for with ads. The government stepped in to protect monopolies against the citizens of the country and entrepreneurship.
This plan should continue to be developed, abet at a slower pace. In the event of national disaster, it could serve as a back-up to the existing internet structure. I know, I know, the internet itself was originally designed to be the backup of the national communications network in the event of a nuclear war that destroyed the centralized switching terminals of the phone system.
But the web now is much greater than its original design and much more fragile. In the event of a 'long emergency', if I may invoke James Howard Kunstler's dystopian scenario, it would be wise to have a low-speed low-tech internet-ready communications system in reserve.
A half mile away from an antennae, 4G becomes all but useless. Since in my area antennas are spaced more than one mile apart, such a situation is common. Many areas of the US do not have 3g or 4g. If we can get a uniform coverage of just under 1mb/sec, this will force the wireless companies to compete, something they obviously do not want to do, preferring to run borderline fraudulent ads.
Most users won't be happy with this service because youtube videos and flash won't work well. Many companies won't be happy with people using this service because of the bloated pages that will take forever to load the ads. However, for organizations that want to reach these consumers, it will provide a new market. Again, the incumbents are afraid of any tech that will allow new competition.
Of course such users will have to have computers, which are still expensive. $2K a month, which I have seen quotes as the 2nd quintile, does not leave much expendable income after food and board.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
This wasn't a free nationwide internet plan. This was a spectrum grab with the nationwide internet plan added to sweeten the deal for the FCC.
The second part is the key thing; they would have gotten the AWS-3 band, nationwide, for free, and then leased it back out.
True, but you'd still have to buy a computer, smartphone, etc. to be able to access the internet.
Lobbying against your potential competitors is better then having to pour concrete around their feet and throw them into a river.
Have gnu, will travel.
Did you RTFA? No, of course not. They claim they have a good business plan. What's more, it's none of your or the damned government's business to judge their business plan, it is their investors' money, and if they want to throw it away, it is, literally, THEIR business.
And if you don't like watching ads, don't. But it's none of your business, again literally, if others do, or even whether others do.
Infuriate left and right
"Fsck it, I don't really need soggy pizza rolls anyways".
government regulation or no, that's why I warm most stuff up in the toaster instead.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Competition? No! Competition is always bad bad bad. To grow the industry, you must not allow low-cost alternatives in order that the whole market ecosystem may grow and develop. In light of that, (and in keeping with trickle-down economics) you must not allow this free alternative to exist! It would be tantamount to allowing a government monopoly in the industry. We can see no good in allowing this.
-Sincerely,
Corporate ISP's of America
And yet people want the FCC to regulate net neutrality.
How's that change working out for you guys?
Not appointed.
Fuck the ISPs who want to continue bilking 85% of their userbase that this service would meet the needs of
Fuck them for not wanting to provide service to rural communities (I'm 35 minutes from the silicon valley and my "options" are satelite and dialup, evdo is so slow it might as well be nonexistant.)
I can download at 6mbs for 200m per day then I get cut off, in contrast people with real highspeed, watching netflix can consume 200G per month in daily activities.
This service could provide a stopgap that makes ISPs wake up to their competition. Since it would benefit rural communities as much as the 85% of customers that pay for the majority of bandwidth, while using almost none on current infrastructure. It'd also set the bottom rung for competition higher than 384k (which is what you're gonna get if you're lucky and rural.)
Basically I'm getting the 'net with speeds like these guys were talking about "free" with the cellphone I'd be paying for regardless.
I travel a lot and need "internet anywhere". I was using Verizon's cellmodem (EVDO) service with an Expresscard device (Kyocera KPC680) for $60 a month flat rate, plus $80 a month for unlimited talk on a regular cellphone. It was just too much. Speed at speedtest.net was generally about 1.2mb/s inbound, creepy-slow outbound (little better than dialup, no hope of uploading a video).
I did some research, scored a Tmobile-branded Sony-Ericsson TM506 phone at a pawn shop for $60. Doesn't look like much but it was their first 3G phone and mine happened to be completely tether-friendly in Linux. $80 a month at TMobile turns it on for voice AND data - and in any reasonably urban area I seem to find 3G coverage at which point the thing can do data and voice at the same time - data obviously slows down some but what the hell, at least I can take a call. Tether speeds are around .8mb/s inbound, about .3-.4 outbound, so uploading a video is actually practical. Tethering speeds between USB and Bluetooth seem more or less identical, at least in Ubuntu Lucid.
You have to do your research on which phone to get - the TM717 is a later variant of my phone that has to be hacked on a bit to tether but it's no big deal. Some of the late versions of my phone might need tweaking. For anything else the key feature you need is HSDPA data and do some googling for Tmobile compatibility. TMobile is the most tether-tolerant of the major cellcos.
Point is, speeds in this range are usable. Doesn't sound like much and is absolutely not going to be a good idea for major torrents and such, but for basic stuff including Youtube/Hulu/etc. it works.
I'm teaching English in Korea, and I have been here for about 4 months. For a while I thought I was being clever and stealing internet from my tech-unsavvy neighbor that downloads at about 3.5 mbps. It turns out the city I'm in just has free citywide wireless.
Big corporations have become stronger and smarter and Govt cannot monitor their day-to-day illegal & immoral activities.
Govt can punish individuals but not big corporations because they can topple them e.g http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs
Govt can only go for settlement with big corporations e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft
It is better to breakup these corporations into smaller entities to solve unemployment and to promote competition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Every US Federal regulatory body has a formal / informal (i.e., corrupt) advocacy role for those corporations they are supposedly overseeing.
I'm working with a city council candidate to implement a public MESH network trialing it in his ward first. I did advise him that setting up such a system would more likely than not violate the TOS of most providers like Cox and Verizon. But screw em' if they don't like it. We can throttle the bandwidth and block certain ports on the feed side so it's not like the traffic would be extreme.
AWS-3 is a 20mhz swath from 2155-2175 mhz. Compare that to 802.11. Each channel in 802.11 is alocated 22mhz.
I think either you don't realize what was really being sold off, or you are misleading.
Think about that-- less than one 802.11 wireless channel is what they would have gave up. Now that bandwidth does have a price if the FCC were to sell our bandwidth (yes our, it is the citizens spectrum) they estimate a sale at 2 billion. Do you think two billion is fair for a national broadband plan? How much do you think implementing a nationwide free wireless network should cost? How much commercial spectrum leasing can they do in that limited spectrum?
AT&T, Nokia, T-Mobile, Verizon and several other wireless industry heavyweights aren't only against this M2Z plan, they are also against the open auction of the 2155-2175mhz band. They don't want competition, it's as simple as that.